Every Girl for Herself
by librarian-byday
Summary: Jade visits Artemis following the events of "Endgame." Crock family feels.


"I'll take her. Go."

It's the first thing Roy says to me when it's all over. He takes Lian and tells me to leave.

Because of what happened to West.

I tell him I can't. I tell him I don't know what to say to her. But he insists, and after everything that's happened these past few months, I don't have the energy to fight him. Our usual battle of wills will have to wait.

After a few of the right calls, I find out she's staying at Mom's tonight. I take the very next train to Gotham. Not that I'm in any kind of rush.

Mom looks like hell when she answers the door. I kneel to hug her, and her voice is still congested when she tells me Artemis is already here, that she hasn't spoken a word to her, she hasn't left her room - our room - since she got here.

I don't know what makes her seem to think I'd have any more luck with this kind of thing. But she's my mother, so I humor her.

Neither of them bothered to turn on many lights, I soon realize, and my throat begins to tighten as I make my way down the familiarly dark hallway. I don't know what to prepare myself for when I tap on the door and a heavy silence answers. Pushing the door open a crack, I say her name in a timid, mousey voice that doesn't belong to me.

My sister doesn't move from her shadow on the bed. She sits knees to chest, still in costume, and I almost trip over a bow and quiver in the dark.

"Artemis?" I try again.

She shifts, and the dim city lights catch the side of her face.

"I don't want to talk, Jade."

"Good," I shrug. "Neither do I."

"Then why did you come here?"

Because Roy made me.

Because Mom's worried.

Because you're my sister.

"Why did you?" I settle on, and she curls up tighter.

That was a stupid question. Where else could she go but here? She couldn't go back to the home she and West started together. How could she? Roy and I . . . we still have a lot of damage to fix. But if I had lost him today, after finally getting him back, I'd more than likely be on the bed on the opposite side of this room. And Artemis would be the one making sure I wasn't alone.

Cautiously, I take a seat next to her on the edge of the bed.

"I said I don't want to talk," she mutters.

"Then don't talk," I say. "But at least take this mask off." I reach for it myself, and she doesn't move to stop me. Her mask is still damp, and as I lean forward and pull it over her head, I notice something smashed tightly to her chest. It's that old bear of hers, that stupid little bear she held twelve years ago when I first ran away. With her mask off now, and that worn-out thing in her arms glaring up at me, I see that little girl with the pleading eyes, begging me not to leave, desperate to hang on to the shambles she mistook for a family. I couldn't see it back then, but now, in this same room where we had first parted ways, it begins to sink in.

Family was never my thing - at least that's what I thought before. Family was more my sister's specialty. Artemis has probably been more of a mother figure to this family than our actual mother. She _was _the only one who waited for Mom, after all, and she put up with Dad much longer than I could. She'd even been with me when Lian was born. And back when we were kids, on the nights when Dad would say something that I couldn't leave unchallenged, after another shouting match ended with my retreat back to our room, I remember when Artemis would come out of hiding to climb into bed next to me, and she'd stroke my hair to calm me down. I remember on the nights when I was too spent to snap at her or shoo her away, she'd do that until I fell asleep.

Maybe it's stupid, but that one stuck with me the most. I've learned to brush my fingers along my daughter's hair in the same way when she cries or won't go to sleep. I've even done it to Roy on the nights when he'd been particularly low. But it was Artemis's thing, something she came up with. And though I'd never admit it out loud to her, it was the only true source of comfort I ever found in this house.

I try to swallow back the tightness in my throat again, but it lingers in my chest. None of this is right at all. I think of Lian back home with Roy, the little family I somehow found with them, and I wonder how the girl who turned and walked away from the tears in her kid sister's eyes ends up with her own child to soothe and care for.

All Artemis ever wanted was a family. When she had to hide her stuffed animals from Dad, she turned to me. What I refused to give her, she eventually found with her team. Then I think of her and West, and when I remember their dual reactions the first time I brought Lian over, I actually start to feel sick.

The sirens outside bring me back to reality. She hasn't moved except to bury her chin deeper into her bear. Tentatively, I reach out for the blonde locks in her eyes and set one behind her ear. It's easy to recognize the Gotham grime between the strands. I guess she tried taking something out on the city's scum tonight before I got here. Without success, it looks like.

Maybe this is the part where a good person would give a sympathetic word and some comforting assurances. If I were a better person, maybe I could lie to her and say everything will be alright, that he's somehow always going to be with her. Instead, I untie her hair, let it fall over her shoulders in silence, and I comb through the tangles with my fingers. Neither of us speak. Artemis sits like stone for what feels like hours, and I just keep running my fingers through her hair because I can't think of anything else to do and don't want to keep still.

Finally, I hear her voice, muffled by her bear, cracking through the thick silence.

"When do you have to head back home?"

I hadn't thought about it at all. I never really planned how long I'd stick around when I left. I didn't even pack anything for overnight. But I'm here. And for right now, I'm not sure how I can go back. Can I just retreat back to the husband and daughter I never deserved when the family Artemis has worked her whole life for has been torn away from her?

I untangle my fingers from her hair just long enough to pull my feet up on the bed.

"I can stay a little longer, if you want."

"Okay."

Mom eventually stops by the door, and I dismiss her with a shake of my head. This is where I have to be for the moment, making amends to the family I abandoned, to the little girl I ran from a lifetime ago. I see her arms loosen around her bear, and soon her head finds my shoulder.

I don't disappear this time. When the small, scared voice tells me to stay, I close my eyes, blocking out the darkness of my childhood home, and I stroke my baby sister's hair until she falls asleep.


End file.
